A Golden Book of Venice

by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

"Ay, 'for Marina and Venice,'" was the scornful answer, "but Venice first. Splendor and gifts and the pleasing of every whim, if he could but guess it—gold for her asking, and her palace no better than a cross for her dwelling; for the one thing she needeth for her peace and life he giveth not!"

"What meanest thou?" cried Girolamo, furiously. "Hath he not spent a fortune on physicians—sparing nothing, save to torment her no more, since their skill is but weariness to her! She is eating her heart out for this quarrel with Rome—which no man may help, and it is but foolishness for women to meddle with; and she hath ever been too much under priestly sway. Why earnest thou hither this night?"

"For this cause and for no other," said Piero solemnly, "that thou mightest find me, if need should be for any service to her. And to swear to thee, by the Madonna and every saint of Venice, that I would give my life for her!"

But old Girolamo grew the angrier for Piero's professions of loyalty. "Shall her father do less than thou?" he questioned, wrathfully. "On the morrow will I go to her, and leave her no more until she forgets."

"By all the saints in heaven, and every Madonna in Venice, and our Lady of every traghetto!" Piero exclaimed, as he wrenched himself away from Girolamo's angry grasp, while the old man staggered against the wall, still holding a bit of cloth from the gondolier's cloak in his closed hand, "I am vowed to my mission before this dawn! What I have spoken is for duty to thine house, and not in anger—though I could color my stiletto in good patrician blood and die for it gaily, if that would help her!"

But Girolamo could not yet find his voice, and Piero, with his hand on the latch of the great iron gates of the water-story, turned and called back: "Women are not like men, and Marina is like no other woman that ever was born in Venice. Whether it be the priests that have bewitched her—may the Holy Madonna have mercy, and curse them for it!—or whether she be truly the Blessed Virgin of San Donato come to earth again, one knows not. But, Messer Magagnati,"—and the voice came solemnly from the dark figure dimly outlined against the gray darkness beyond the iron bars,—"thy daughter is dying for this curse of the Most Holy Father—'il mal anno che Dio le dia!' (may heaven make him suffer for it!)—and she hath no peace in Venice. She will never forget nor change. If thy love be great, as thou hast said, thou wilt find some way to help her. For in Venice she hath no peace."

The old merchant, dazed by Piero's hot words, was a pitiful figure, standing, desolate, behind the closed bars of his gate, the night wind lifting his long beard and parting the thin gray locks that flowed from under his cap, while he called and beckoned impotently to Piero to return, repeating meanwhile mechanically, with no perception of their meaning, those strange words of Piero's—"In Venice she hath no peace." He stood, peering out into the gray gloom and listening to the lessening plash of the oar, until the gondola of the gastaldo was already far on the way to San Marco, where sat the Ten.

But it was not of Piero's mission he was thinking, but of his child—saying over and over again those fateful words, "In Venice she hath no peace." Had Piero said that?

Suddenly the entire speech recurred to him—insistent, tense with meaning. She could not live in Venice. Marina had no peace in Venice. She would never forget nor change. She had need of him—of her father's love; and if he loved enough, he would find a way!

Chilled and heart-sick he turned, and with no torch and missing the voice which had guided him through the long, dark passage, he groped his way to his cabinet and sat down to confront a graver problem than any he had ever conquered with Marina's aid. He would find a way—but "it must not be in Venice!" How could they leave Venice? Were they not Venetians born, and was not Venice in trouble? To leave her now were to deny her. It could not be!